Wed Journey-style AOR fodder to bar-band blues, and two products are possible: tough, inventive rock & roll with arena-sized power, or plodding, unconvincing music drawn out by aimless soloing. This Bay Area quintet offers not enough of the former and way too much of the latter.
Lewis’ pleasantly raspy blues voice gets a good workout on Mike Chapman and Nick Chinn’s gutty "The Heart and Soul." But a fancy-pants sax solo and some moronic lyrics sabotage the spirited "Heart of Rock & Roll" (it’s still kicking, says Huey), which should have ended a minute and a half earlier.
More annoying is "Walking on a Thin Line," wherein Lewis even sings "desperation" just like Men at Work’s Colin Hay. The tune’s a semistomper but is saddled with some repellent lines about a Vietnam serviceman–"I’m the boy next door/The one you find so easy to ignore/Is that what I was fighting for?"–that equate military service with Getting the Girl. And while Dave Edmunds tomahawked Lewis’ own "Bad Is Bad" on Repeat When Necessary, Huey’s chops come up short on this slow, syndrum version.
Fans of the Tubes’ "She’s a Beauty" will recognize the central guitar riff of "I Want a New Drug"; everyone else will catch the "Purple Haze" quotation in the ceaseless solo that wraps things up. And while "If This Is It" uncovers some pop abilities in the boys, it sounds too much like Orleans. Sports shows Huey Lewis and the News still a few bricks shy of a load. (RS 414)
Posted to Rolling Stone by CHRISTOPHER CONNELLY on Feb 2, 1984